Quick, answer me this: Is shopping good or bad? On the face of it, shopping isn't a definite evil like, say, corruption. And it's not a virtue akin to, say, generosity. It doesn't even appear to qualify as an in-between like obedience, which can be good or not so good depending on the circumstances.
But if you dismiss the question out of hand, you'll be ignoring the fine thinking and careful cultural critiquing found in two new books about shopping and consumerism. With the Christmas season upon us with its legions of shopping bags and stacks of credit cards, there is no better time to examine the role shopping plays in our lives and to assess its benefits, and its value, to society.
Oops, I've given the answer away. Because, indeed, both books conclude that shopping is good. But they take divergent paths to get there, and they embrace the purported goodness in very different ways.
The stronger of the two is the most recent: I Want That! How We All Became Shoppers by Thomas Hine (Harper Collins, 240 pages, $24.95). Hine, who has previously written books on culture, history and design, is obviously attracted to his subject, because like any sentient citizen he wonders how it happened that centuries of human progress have led to this moment of rampant, nonstop consumerism.
Why is it that we are battered from every corner by messages trying to sell us something? How did we end up producing so much unnecessary stuff that fills our stores and our homes? Why has Christmas, the joyful celebration of a baby's birth, become an excuse for acquiring more, more, more belongings?
Until he started to look at it, Hines was obviously on the shopping-is-bad side of the subject. But he did look into the shopping culture, and he's not ashamed to admit that he now embraces it as an important form of human freedom, an activity that allows all of us -- young and old, poor and rich -- to exert our power to choose. People want to pick out goods: to use, to eat, to bestow upon others. In the not too distant past, most of the population had little power to do that.
Today, at a consumer palace like Wal-Mart, thousands of items from all over the world have been assembled for citizens to choose among and buy -- at relatively low prices. Of course, Wal-Mart is a yawn to many of us, a spot to be avoided on crowded Saturday mornings -- anything but a marvel.
When we think that way we're unconsciously slipping into the alienated mood that Daniel Harris explores so subtly in his book, Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism, now available in paperback (Da Capo, 270 pages, $16.50). Harris is a master at identifying and exploring the stances that we have assumed in dealing with the intrusiveness of the mass market. Trying to be cool, glamorous or zany, we tell ourselves lies, he maintains, out of desperation. We need to find some protection, some way of preserving our individuality in a world where McDonald's is always trying to get us to smile today.
In the process of dissecting these attitudes, Harris explains such mysteries as why lots of new furniture comes "distressed" (many of us long for an idyllic, imaginary past when goods were handmade), how teen-agers became captivated by the peculiar hobby of body piercing (they want to be seen as rejecting the conventional notions of beauty promoted so relentlessly) and why so many liquid cleaning products are clear (manufacturers want to allay fears that the products could be carcinogenic).
His book is critical of the constant-sell, we-never-close world, but in a light-hearted way. After all, he admits in his concluding chapter, to wish away consumerism and all its attendant pretensions is to ask for the end of society as we know it, and usher in an existence where there would be no time for "writing ungrateful diatribes."
But for all its amusing observations about kitsch and cool -- and its eventual expression of support for acquiring and the free market -- Harris' book doesn't pack the punch of Hine's book. The latter rigorously challenges the reflexive -- and ultimately anti-capitalist -- disdain that many wannabe intellectuals and self-styled rebels express for the consumerist society.
In a rambling chapter about the different ways that men and women shop, Hine comes to the moral heart of his subject: that people shop in large part to fulfill their responsibilities to others. Women enjoy shopping more than men, he says, not because they are more frivolous, less concerned about money and overly interested in hair-care products, but because in shopping women come closer to their primal, caretaking role.
The women's movement, the closing of the gender gap and the more prominent role that women play today in the workplace have done little to blunt this need that women have to get out there and prowl the aisles to ensure the material well-being of their families.
Hine is not completely sold on shopping. He derides the suffocating commercial atmosphere that we live in as the "buyosphere," and he skewers some of the same absurdities in the culture that Harris assails. Domestic diva Martha Stewart takes some licks not for her recent investment difficulties but for exulting the laboriously handmade. The pricey furniture store Domain is teased for promoting an interiors style of exotic disarray -- a look that takes a lot of stuff, presumably from Domain, to achieve. Hine also talks sensitively about the propensity some people have for self-destructive overindulgence and how easy it is for them to get in trouble in our world of plenty.
But in general, he concentrates on the many positives of shopping. Beyond the power and opportunity for nurturing it offers individuals, he lauds it as a route to discovery and self-expression. Again and again he draws comparisons with a nonconsumerist past, when most people spent the majority of their time isolated in the laborious production of items -- mostly food and clothing -- and only infrequently entered the marketplace to buy and sell. Since the market is a place of interaction and performance where one looks, learns and negotiates, it is by its very nature eye-opening.
OK, there's not a lot of haggling going on at Eddie's; and Cross Keys bears only a faint resemblance to the Middle Eastern open-air bazaars that Hine holds up as sensual, tactile ideals. But our impersonal supermarkets and pristine malls still hum with the energy of commerce and draw people in with the promise of fulfilling their desires (some that they are not yet conscious of). As you steel yourself for tiring forays to the shops this Christmas, you may also want to keep in mind that even the rampant commercialism of the holiday season has a noble aspect. While it's become a cliche to say that the true meaning of Christmas has been overwhelmed by materialism, the presents we give one another aren't tinny expressions of shallow sentiments, at least not the majority of the time.
Sure, we like to be complimented on our taste, and no doubt a number of us love to show off just how much we can afford to spend, but most gift-giving is an effort to connect. In a world where families and friends are widely dispersed, presents keep people thinking about each other. "We all go our own ways," writes Hine, "then hope that the things we buy in the stores in December and wrap in red and green paper will be enough to hold us together."
A little sad, perhaps, but isn't the alternative -- not making the effort -- worse? Shopping sits in the middle of our lives, eating up time, thought and effort. Exhortations to buy fill our ears and our eyes continually. Consumer goods occupy an exalted place in our culture. But the alternative? It's bad for sure.
Clare McHugh, founding editor of the men's magazine Maxim, is now an editor-at-large at Time Inc. She has served as editor-in-chief of New Woman and executive editor of Marie Claire.